Class of the Wolf
Starlog (August 2004)
Transcribed by Ceirdwyn

Fantasy film veteran David Thewlis gets hairy, teaching the Dark Arts as Professor Lupin

David Thewlis has no children, nor any nieces or nephews. But the talented British actor has several godchildren and a lot of friends with kids. And they're all really impressed that he portrays Professor Remus Lupin in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. "It has been great," Thewlis enthuses "That has been part of the thrill, really, to tell children who know the books that I'm in Azkaban and playing Lupin and see their faces. They can scarcely believe it.

"I took quite a few kids down to the set, and it was amazing to see how they just froze - especially if they met Daniel Radcliff [who plays Harry Potter]. But the main attraction of doing Potter is that it's a film series which is attracting better and better actors. These movies draw some of the best actors in Britain. I believe that Ray Winstone is going to be in Goblet of Fire [the fourth Harry Potter entry]. He's a great friend and one of the finest actors in the country. As the series goes on and new characters are introduced, it will accumulate more great actors. I'm so proud to be part of this."

Thewlis jokes that Prisoner of Azkaban was one of the "easiest jobs" he has ever landed. Just as he was finishing up work on Cheeky - a film that he wrote, directed and starred in - his agent phoned to say that Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón wanted him for the role of Lupin. "I had actually been considered for Professor Quirrell in the first film, the role that Ian Hart played, but I couldn't do it at the time," Thewlis recalls. "So I had met Chris Columbus [who helmed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and its sequel, Chamber of Secrets, and was an executive producer on Prisoner of Azkaban] and all of the production people before. I met Alfonso for a coffee and he asked me, 'Do you want to do this?' I was so caught up in the post-production of my own film that it didn't really sink in for a while. I just said yes because it was a great opportunity to be involved with the Harry Potter films. "

DARK ARTS

As any Potter fan worth their weight in chocolate frogs knows, Lupin was best mates with Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spalls) and James Potter, Harry's dad, who died at the hands of Lord Voldemort. Now, in Prisoner of Azkaban, Lupin receives the blessing of Headmaser Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. Harry and Lupin strike up a fast friendship and the teacher does what he can to protect Harry, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) when dark clouds - and even darker Dementors - start to hover over, in and around Hogwarts. Complicating matters, Lupin turns into a werewolf with every full Moon.

Thewlis explains that he played Lupin as a human, but acknowledges that there were days when he simply couldn't ignore the fact that Lupin is lupine. One such day came early on in the actor's involvement with the project. "We spent two whole days and many camera test trying out the prosthetic makeup," he recalls. "It took about six hours to cast my head. I think [the final werewolf design] ended up looking more CGI than I expected, but I had big contact lenses, huge teeth, nails that grew and a plastic head on me. It was a little uncomfortable."

If it made Thewlis uncomfortable, that's nothing compared to what Cuarón springs on unsuspecting moviegoers - or, rather, those not familiar with J.K. Rowling's book. In a classic scene taken directly from the novel, Lupin transforms into a wolf and goes on the attack, targeting even those he loves. "It comes out of nowhere two-thirds of the way through the film," Thewlis notes. "Hermione sees the Moon rising and we've just been in the Shrieking Shack. We come out and we're holding Wormtail/Peter Pettigrew hostage. At that moment, the Moon rises and I go through the transformation. Once I'm a werewolf, I'm played by a nine foot Thai kickboxer or ballet dancer in an animatronic body suit. I was so glad I wasn't in that thing."

"I was working with Gary Oldman [Azkaban's Sirius Black] who's an experienced veteran of prosthetics, from Bram Stoker's Dracula [and Hannibal]. He was very sympathetic about how difficult the makeup was going to be and that we were going to be there for a long time. Sirius Black holds onto me as Lupin's transforming, and we got to a point where I had changed as I could in-camera so CGI and the animatronic creature took over. But Gary was left there the whole time. I said 'Bye Gary, I'm going home, man. You have another two days hanging onto that piece of plastic.' But it was great fun."

Likewise, Thewlis had great fun collaborating with his co-stars and Curaón. "Alfonso is a real pleasure to work with," he says. "I can't say enough about him. He's a fantastic guy, and so funny, passionate and eccentric. He truly has a different slant on Azkaban than [Chris Columbus did on] the previous two films, and that's going to be noticeable. Alfonso's style is quite different from that of Columbus. Alfonso's into grunge a little more. The kids look punkier, with scruffy hair. In the other films they looked combed and smart. But it fits with their aging. Daniel is very into punk music, and all sorts of rock was played [on the set]. He wears Adidas tracksuit tops in the film and looks more like a regular teenager than some kind of preened, polished Hollywood version of Harry Potter. He's a little scruffier and edgier.

"Alfonso is also kind of grungy and scruffy," Thewlis adds. "I hope he won't mind me saying that. He has wild hair and a wild beard. He's Mexican and a passionate man. I loved working with him, and I'm a big fan of his other movies. It was a brave choice by Warners to go that way, considering that Alfonso's last film was about teenage kids, sex and drugs. I don't think the tabloid press in England have made that connection yet."

"I've known Gary and Tim for a while, and the kids are fantastic. Daniel is a great young man, and working with Gary was terrific. We're almost contemporaries, but I've looked up to him for many years. He was one of the first British actors of my generation to make it in movies when we were all doing theater and television. Gary, Tim Roth and Daniel Day-Lewis were in these huge films. I remember going to the cinema and thinking 'God, imagine being in a movie. That must be incredible.' Luckily my career has worked out so that's all I've done for the past 12 years. So I had met Gary several times before, but I had never worked with him. It was fabulous to work with him and get to know him. We ended up hanging put a lot together and becoming quite close. He's a lovely guy. It's nice not to be disappointed in one of your heroes."

TALKING WORMS

Lupin doesn't appear in the pages of Goblet of Fire and, as such, Thewlis will not turn up in the film version that's now shooting in England under the direction of Mike Newell. However, Lupin reappears in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Thewlis hopes that means a return engagement. "In prepping for Azkaban, I read that book and Goblet of Fire," says Thewlis, who read Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets back when he was being considered as Quirrell. "Then right in the middle of filming Azkaban, Order of the Phoenix was published, which I haven't completely finished. I'm saving that for when we [shoot that picture]. I'm hoping that they cast me. It isn't a foregone conclusion, but I'm assuming that because Lupin returns in book five that I'll be back again, too."

STARLOG readers are no doubt pleased to see Thewlis in yet another genre film. He has become something of a staple, amassing among his credits James and the Giant Peach, Dragonheart, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Dinotopia and, most recently, Timeline. For the Tim Burton-produced, Henry Selick-produced animated James and the Giant Peach, Thewlis provided the voice of Earthworm, joining a voice cast that included Susan Sarandon as Spider, Richard Dreyfuss as Centipede and Jane Leeves as Ladybug.

"That's one of my proudest achievements," Thewlis raves. "I love that film. [As a voice actor], you don't have much involvement other than turning up in the studio and recording your dialogue. I never saw anything of the film until I attended a screening at a Los Angeles cinema. I thought it was fantastic, and it's something that I give as a present to children. If they're too young to understand when I tell them 'That's me. I'm the worm. That's my voice,' then I do the voice for them. That's one of my top three things in my whole career."

Dragonheart cast Thewlis as King Einon, an evil monarch whose reign a dragon slayer (Dennis Quaid) and a dragon, Draco (voiced by Sean Connery), attempt to end. Complicating matters, Draco once saved Einon, and so they share a common bond. "I was sent the script when I first went to L.A.," Thewlis says. "I thought it was a clever idea to have Sean Connery as the voice of the dragon, and it was great to work with Dennis, Julie Christie and Pete Postlethwaite. That was my first real experience making a big production, a Hollywood special-effects movie. I had never done anything remotely like that before because I had mainly worked in British TV and film. To be on the set of a multi-million-dollar special-effects movie with Hollywood actors was a big eye-opener for me, a great experience.

"I remember I was also up for Rob Roy and Die Hard 3, and I had to make a decision between those three films. The character in Rob Roy was kind of a rapist, and I had just done Naked, so it wouldn't have been a good career move to play another sexually aggressive person. Then with Die Hard 3, I didn't really know what that was saying about the world. It was what it was. But I thought there was something sweet and optimistic about Dragonheart. Many children know me from Dragonheart, and I wasn't a very nice guy in that. It'll be easier now to be recognized as Lupin, who is a very, very good man."

LOST SOULS

Thewlis portrayed another good man, Edward Douglas, in The Island of Dr. Moreau. Directed by the late John Frankenheimer, the film starred Marlon Brandon as the title character - the doctor, not the island - a scientist gone mad. Splicing together the DNA of humans and animals, Dr. Moreau - with help from his assistant Montgomery (Val Kilmer) - creates a menagerie of fearsome creatures, and it's up to Douglas to stop the insanity. The movie was a notorious flop; the consensus was that it sent Moreau author H.G. Wells spinning in his grave.

"I could so a whole book on Island of Dr. Moreau," Thewlis laughs. "Val and I did switch roles. That's true. We would have a really long conversation if I really got into everything about that film. Phew, it was a life experience - and not a good one, really. It was pretty chaotic, complicated and dark. It was an extremely odd movie to be part of. I got involved at the last minute. I was called up at midnight in Britain and got on a plane at 8 a.m. the next day, not having seen the script. I took the part because I didn't want to pass up the chance of playing the lead role in a film with Brando. I don't expect to do anything that disastrous again.

"I'll go out for drinks and people will ask me for it, and I can talk all night about that film. Therer were so many bizarre and eccentric episodes that went on. I guess that anyything you've seen reported about that picture is probably true. People think, 'But surely that didn't happen,' and I'll go 'Oh yeah, that happened'. More bizarre things than have been reported went on. It was absolute craziness. Brando was obviously part of it, but I have fond memories of him. He's a good guy, and I was very honoured [to work with him]."

"Not everyone gets to see Marlon Brando in a crowd, let alone meet him, work closely with him and become his friend. That's something I'll remember to the day I die: I once spent four weeks in the rainforest with Marlon Brando. He took me under his wing. He had me in his trailer and we played chess a lot. It was fantastic. It wasn't a problem. It was just that the film was a mess. The script was nowhere. Frankenheimer came onto the set so late and was confused about what kind of movie to make. He was given [original director] Richard Stanley's script, which was very dense. And then there was the mixture of personalities between Frankenheimer, Brando, Kilmer myself and Fairuza [Balk, who played Aissa]."

PAST TIMES

A few years later - for the 30-minute film Hamilton Mattress - Thewlis provided the voice of Sludge, a drumming aardvark who rises to fame as Hamilton Mattress in Beak City. MGM Home Entertainment released Hamilton Mattress on DVD in February. "I didn't even know it had gotten to the States," Thewlis says. "I was in New York a few weeks ago and this guy in a video store recognized me. He looked at me and said 'What have you been in? I know I've seen you in things.' I looked around the shop, but I didn't see any of my films. I then noticed Hamilton Mattress on the top of a shelf and said, 'I'm in that.' I'm amazed that it got to America. That was nice. I love animation."

More recently, Thewlis appeared in two more genre projects, Dinotopia and Timeline. He co-starred in Dinotopia as Cyrus Crabb, an outlaw in a utopian land where men and dinosaurs live in harmony. In May 2002, ABC aired the three-part mini-series - based on the James Gurney books - which set the stage for a short-lived weekly series in which Thewlis did not appear. Timeline featured Thewlis in a supporting role as Robert Doninger, the Bill Gates-esque head of International Technology Corporation, the company that funds the archaeological digs of Professor Johnston (Bill Connolly) and his team. Based on the time-tripping Michael Crichton novel and directed by veteran filmmaker Richard Donner, Timeline proved to be a disappointment upon its release in November 2003.

"Dinotopia was something I did because work was a bit dry at the time and the money was good," Thewlis admits. "It was fine. It read very nicely. I don't think it turned out to be a great project. On Timeline, I got to work with my girl friend [Anna Friel, who played Lady Claire]. A bunch of great actors were on that. I went in, did my two weeks and wasn't involved very much with everything else. I did stay around because Anna was in the movie. It wasn't one of the greatest things, but you get what you can get."

Thewlis' current project isn't a genre film, but it's a movie worth mentioning. Kingdom of Heaven is a Crusades-era epic being helmed by Ridley Scott. "I play a warrior monk," Thewlis reveals. "It's something I know I'm going to be really proud of because Ridley is probably the best director I've ever worked with. He's incredible, and to work on a film of this scale is awesome. It's the antithesis of Dr. Moreau. This is a huge production - something like $160 million - but Ridley couldn't be calmer. He looks like he's having a walk in the park. He's a beautiful man and there are some great actors in it: Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, Edward Norton [as well as Brendan Gleeson, Orlando Bloom and Alexander Siddig]. It has been a tremendous experience."

Chances are that Thewlis will eventually return to the land of SF and fantasy, whether it's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix or something else before that. Either by fate or chance, he seems attracted to such material. "If you make enough movies, you end up doing a bit of everything," David Thewlis reasons. "I did count this at one point - and I think I may be eligible for the King's Book of Records - but I've been in more films where animals talk than any other actor. I think you should check that out one day."